OF PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS - "Iraquotes"

(12/24/2003)

By Tony Russell

"In the Middle Ages, when people were convinced there were witches, they
certainly found them." - Hans Blix, chief United Nations weapons
inspector, on the Bush administration's repeated assertions that Iraq
possessed chemical and biological weapons that threatened the United
States.

"International law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein
alone."
- Richard Perle, key advisor to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
admitting
that the attack on Iraq-despite administration claims to
the contrary-was
illegal.

"We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11."
- President George W. Bush, on September 17, 2003.

"There are many smoking guns." - Secretary of State Colin Powell
after his pivotal February 5 speech before the United Nations, making
the administration's case for war.

"It was a masterful performance, but none of it was true." - Ray
McGovern, former CIA analyst, on Powell's February 5 speech.

"The public deserves to know the truth. There is so much cheerleading on
TV. They're not getting the truth. Most pundits care about getting Bush
in or out of office. Its politics at its worst. The White House is doing
what all White Houses do--spinning. They give their take, which most of
the time I find to be inaccurate. I'm an advocate for the soldier. I
love my country, not necessarily the government." - Retired Major
Bob Bevelacqua, Fox News [!] military analyst.

"It would be tragic enough if the casualties of the Iraq war were
confined to the battlefield, but they are not. The casualties of this
war will have serious repercussions for generations to come. Truth is
one casualty. Despite the best efforts of the White House to contort the
invasion of Iraq into an extension of the war on terror, there was never
a connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11. There was never a
connection between Iraq and September 11. Not a single Iraqi was among
the nineteen hijackers of those four planes. Despite dire warnings from
the President, Saddam Hussein had at his fingertips neither the means
nor the materiel to unleash deadly weapons of mass destruction on the
world. Despite presidential rhetoric to the contrary, Iraq did not pose
a grave and gathering menace to the security of the United States. The
war in Iraq was nothing less than a manufactured war. It was a war
served up to a deliberately misled and deluded American public to suit
the neoconservative political agenda of the Bush White House." -
Senator Robert Byrd, December 14, 2003.

"There is no question but that [American forces] would be welcomed. Go
back to Afghanistan, the people were in the streets playing music,
cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and
the al-Qaeda would not let them do."
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, February 20, on PBS's "The News
Hour."

"Never said that. Never did. You may remember it well, but you're
thinking of somebody else. You can't find, anywhere, me saying anything
like either of those two things you just said I said." - Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, September 25, in response to a question by
Sinclair Broadcasting anchor Morris Jones, on Rumsfeld's saying before
the invasion that Americans would be welcomed with open arms.